Jaipur Grille

Visited: Winterlicious Dinner on Wednesday Feb 6, 2013Company: Party of 5Winterlicious was around the corner and going through the large list of participating restaurants, my friends and I wanted to try to something less safe for our second season of -licious. We planned a little too last minute and ended up getting a reservation at Jaipur Grille near Yonge and Eg. I was pretty excited anyway because I absolutely adore Indian food. My dad was born in India so he has a few recipes that he always does but I'm always itching for new tastes. That's why I'm always down for Indian buffets, as I tend to stick to what I know at traditional restaurants. Jaipur Grille seemed to offer a lot of interesting options though for their fixe price menu.+Stephanie Szebenyi and I were running late to dinner so when we arrived, our group was seated right in front of the window which would be a great view during the day as the place is on Yonge. It was quite spacious with all the tables along the perimeter of the restaurant, half our table was facing the window which is unusual as you would think they'd have our sides face the window so they can fit more tables. There were many lights but the place was still dim. We were given these spice chips (forgive my ignorance of the names of many things) to nibble on prior to our meals. They were very flavourful but did not do anything to ease our appetites and made us drink a lot of water (you can see them in the top right corner of the first photo).I started off with Samosa Chaat which I have never had before. I love samosas and I saw this added a lot of extra sauces I enjoy already on it so I assumed that I would be good. I was definitely right, this was an explosion of flavours that went with the veg samosa so well. There was mint, yogurt and other things I don't know but tasted amazing! I enjoyed how colourful the dish was too. Great appetizer, filled you up quite a bit.For my main dish, I had the Pahadi Chicken. This was definitely the safe choice as it was the only chicken option. All dishes came with Saag Paneer, Rice, Naan and Raita. The portion amount was perfect, I like to mix things up and I was able to finish everything and not have too much leftover of anything. I'm always worried that the chicken is too dry in dishes like these but this wasn't bad. The pahadi flavour wasn't too overpowering and was very mild. The raita and paneer were great additions as I love both of those things. I love extra cucumber in the raita and didn't think there was enough, the yogurt flavour was also very mild. The naan came fresh and warm to the table but it wasn't the best naan I've had, it was on the hard side. I was extremely full at the end of the meal though.For dessert, I had the mango mousse which was possibly the best mango mousse I've ever had. It was so rich in mango flavour but didn't feel heavy. But I also only ate half which might have been why (some friends didn't enjoy their first time trying gulab jamun and wanted the mousse).